Star Valley High School 2025 graduate, Shaylah Frazier, who is the daughter of Josh and Denise Frazier, was selected as the 2025 Wyoming Distinguished Young Woman, and recently returned from Mobile, Alabama where she networked and competed with young women from throughout the nation for scholarships offered through the program.

Believing the program was a typical post high school scholarship opportunity, Shaylah submitted an application to the program last winter and received word in April that she had been selected as Wyoming’s Distinguished Young Woman for 2025. As she studied the program, which is a requirement for her to receive the awarded scholarship funding, Shaylah learned that the Distinguished Young Women program is a highly respected scholarship program that honors young women who have prepared for leadership their entire lives by living with integrity, wisdom and purpose.

According to distinguishedyw.org, the mission of this program is to prepare young women for future leadership roles by empowering them to develop their “full, individual potential.” The program provides “scholarships, personal development opportunities and a positive peer network.”

Shaylah spent nearly two weeks in Alabama for the program, which covered all her travel, room and board expenses. The young women competing at the event were greeted by local government officials when they arrived and hosted by local families during their stay in Mobile.

Competitors spent most days preparing for the final evening of the event, which uses a pageant format. The young women compete in five categories that include talent, self-expression, fitness, scholastics and an interview. “Some categories are weighted more than others,” Shaylah explained to SVI Media. “The interview and scholastics are weighted more than fitness or talent.”

Each day during their time in Alabama, the 50 young women participated in a service project, which included work at local shelters and grocery stores. Shaylah made it clear that this program is a scholarship program rather than a pageant. “They try to steer away from that stereotype, because they don’t want girls to exclude themselves from it because they think it’s a pageant. You are competing based off of hard work that you have done the last 18 years of your life rather than how you look or dress. This is based on how hard you worked in school or on a talent that you have developed rather than your appearance.”

The program follows a pageant format for efficiency only. Before leaving for Alabama, Shaylah was expected to develop a program that she presented to local elementary students following the theme “Be Your Best Self.”

Nearly 200 students in Star Valley learned of the five pillars included in the Be Your Best Self initiative, which are: Be Healthy, Be Ambitious, Be Responsible, Be Studious, and Be Involved.

Her experience mentoring these young students was meaningful. She was particularly touched after visiting with 2nd grade students at Afton Elementary when one student asked her how to make more friends.

“This girl came up to me and was talking about how she could be involved. She was lacking friends and wanted to make some and she asked me about how being involved could help her make more friends. We talked about how being inclusive and involving everyone could help her to be herself, but could also help her to gain good friends. They had recess right after that. We made a game plan and started a game of tag and then other kids would see how much fun we were having and would want to be involved, and so, obviously, we would let them play with us. We started the game and, by the end of recess, there were 30 kids playing tag. It was really fun, so when all the kids lined up, she came to me and gave me a big hug and said, ‘Thank you so much for helping me make friends,’ and she was talking to some of her new friends that she made playing tag. It was just a really neat thing to see her use that right away and see how big of a difference it made in a short time.”

As part of her presentation to these young friends, she provided bracelets that featured the five pillars of Be Your Best Self that students could color and wear to remind themselves of the choices they want to make as they mature. She spoke to many students personally, and answered their questions. This project earned Shaylah a $1300 scholarship which was awarded to the two young women that judges felt most effectively presented the platform of Be Your Best Self in their community.

Though Wyoming is still on the ground floor with the Distinguished Young Women program, many states are actively engaged in the program and young women receive significant scholarship funding by participating in the program. Some young women receive scholarship funding simply for participating in the program.

Others are offered full-ride scholarships to universities because of their involvement in the program. For Shaylah, the opportunity was life-changing. She decided that it’s “healthy to branch out.

This was not a program that I was super sure about, but I decided that my attitude is up to me, so I can make it what it will be. Going into it with a positive attitude and an open mind really helped me to have the great experience that I did. I met cool people and had fun because of a good attitude.

Perspective changes things in the way that you expect them to be, so if you go into things with a positive attitude, then it will be a positive experience.”

She found that there is incredible power in being genuine. “No matter what you think, you are setting an example for those around you. A lot of these girls were super happy, super nice and extremely genuine, and in my experience, I haven’t seen an instance where 50 girls can get along that well in a competitive situation. There was no fighting, no bickering, no back- stabbing because all 50 of the girls there had collectively decided that we weren’t going to be like that. We were going to be kind to each other and we were going to be rooting for each other. That was a really neat experience. We were an example of kindness for each other. There was no room for fighting or negative energy.”

One of her best memories will be of the day she ate 39 oysters in three minutes as part of a side competition. Though she had never had oysters before, she determined that she was going to give the competition her best effort.

“I had been hyping myself up all week, and the other girls had been, too. The oysters were nasty and I was gagging, but everyone was still cheering me on. It was nice to know that everyone had my back. That was one of the days that we bonded the most as a group because we were all cheering for each other.”

Making friends with young women from other cultures and climates with different experiences to share was valuable for Shaylah. She now has several new friends from places she has never been, and she loves that.

The most important things she did to prepare for the program took years of work. As a volleyball player throughout high school, she became accustomed to performing in front of large crowds, and competing on the SVHS Speech and Debate Team gave her experience in expressing her opinions and delivering a message in front of a crowd. “A lot of the things I did in school gave me confidence.”

Shaylah’s future plans include attending BYU Idaho on a three quarter tuition scholarship to complete a pre-med track and become a traveling nurse. With the additional $1800 that the Distinguished Young Women program offered her, she feels confident and prepared to tackle her chosen career studies. “It’s a really great program and a really great opportunity to make some scholarship money and make some memories. This kind of thing doesn’t happen every day.”

Her message to other young women in Wyoming who may be considering applying to this scholarship program is simple, yet powerful. “They tell us while we are at the program to be ourselves because we have been preparing for this program for the last 18 years of our lives. It’s not a pageant where you can fake your way into winning, because they are not looking for a performance. They are looking for a personality. Whoever you are is who you need to be in this program. You have already developed your talents. You have already developed your personality. You have developed your education. You have already done all the work you need to do for this program. Keep developing all the things that you have worked so hard for. Don’t feel that you are not enough for this opportunity because you are already all you need to be.”